Benefits of juvenile stand management in Finland—impacts on wood production based on scenario analysis

Abstract

We evaluated the impacts of juvenile stand management on wood production based on a nationwide scenario analysis. Measured plot-level information of the Finnish 11th National Forest Inventory (NFI) from juvenile stands formed the initial data for the analysis. To represent a total of 2.5 million hectares of productive forest land available for wood production, 6900 sample plots were selected. We predicted the development of the sample-plot stands for the next 100 years using the Motti stand simulator. We examined the impacts of juvenile stand management, including early cleaning and precommercial thinning, with three scenarios of different intensities of early-stage management (intensive, no management and business-as-usual). The results showed the benefits of juvenile stand management: earlier harvesting revenues, larger total removals, more valuable wood in the removals, and additional benefits that are associated with the first commercial thinning (i.e. no need for clearing before thinning, a larger stem size of removed trees). The main downside of juvenile stand management was the cost of the early cleaning and precommercial thinning. According to the results, a €560 million increase in costs would result in a €1700 million increase in stumpage earnings in Finnish forests during the next 100-year period. The 34 million m3 increase in the sawlog yield together with 28 million m3 decrease in the pulpwood yield also demonstrated the nationwide potential for increasing valuable sawlog production by intensive management of juvenile stands.